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Downloading Steam/Gamersgate Games and PC fixing resources

Two questions:

I have limited downloading at home which makes DLing games a problem since it has to be done between midnight and 8AM. Worse some games are so large they require more than one night which doesn't help in isolating technical problems. The problem here is compounded by the fact that my computer is busted and it often either corrupts its data or needs reformatting. It would make my life much easier if I could DL my purchases at uni where I have infinite bandwidth then transfer them once I get home and keep corrupt files on a hard drive if case I need to replace them.

Is it possible on Steam? Or on Gamers Gate?

Second question:

As alluded to above my PC has been broken on and off for over a year now. I am going to make a systematic attempt to fix it. However this would be helped along by any technical resource sites you guy could point me in the direction of. Helpful tech forums where I can make threads and ask questions would be especially appreciated.

Is there any substantial noise like a whine or constant clicking coming from your HDD?

You may hear some faint occasional clicking which is normally just the read/write head moving back and forth but if it is anything louder or more consistent there is chance one of the read heads has crashed and is scraping the disk hence the corrupted data.

If this is the case I would recommend grabbing the most important data and then removing the HDD, and replace it.

I have three hard drives and get different faults depend on which one I use and which operating system I install. I've also had the computer work perfectly for up to two weeks before suddenly faulting. I am not really convinced hard drives are the problem, especially when one of them was bought after the initial problems appeared. Current opinion is the computer has a power supply or processing problem but that is a problem for another day.

But with respect you're not answering the question, which is can I DL Steam/Gamergate games onto an external hard drive and transfer them to a gaming PC at a later date? And if so how?

Like I said I've reformatted all three drives multiple times over a year ago now. It's not a matter of saving data.

I have three hard drives and get different faults depend on which one I use and which operating system I install. I've also had the computer work perfectly for up to two weeks before suddenly faulting. I am not really convinced hard drives are the problem, especially when one of them was bought after the initial problems appeared. Current opinion is the computer has a power supply or processing problem but that is a problem for another day.

But with respect you're not answering the question, which is can I DL Steam/Gamergate games onto an external hard drive and transfer them to a gaming PC at a later date? And if so how?

Like I said I've reformatted all three drives multiple times over a year ago now. It's not a matter of saving data.

In the case of Steam you just copy the SteamApps folder, default location on Windows 7 would be:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps

Then simple copy the folder back into Steam install location on the other PC.

In regards to the hard drive, check your SATA cables are secure, and also check in device manager under your IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers that your drive is not running at ultra dma mode 1 or below. If it is just remove that controller in device manager then restart your PC.

For Gamersgate you should be able to perform the download elsewhere. When the download completes choose the option to keep the temporary files. Then copy the initial file and the download folder to whatever portable storage you're using and use them to install the game on your home system.

You'll have to connect to the internet to enter your GGate account details to prove you own the game but you shouldn't have to download anything.

I would not recommend Steam's backup feature. I just copy the folders in the steamapps directory and then go to Steam and install the game. It will recognize the existing game content and download anything that's missing automatically. Easy peasy. You'll likely need to back up your saved games separately and each game may have its own conventions and locations for these files.

I keep Steam on a separate partition from my OS so that when I format my system partition and reinstall my OS I can just install Steam overtop of where it used to be installed and it recognizes my games automatically. I have something ridiculous like 150 games installed so it takes a good 20 minutes or so but it installs perfectly every time.

But as the others are recommending, if you suspect there's something wrong with your HDD then it's already past the time you should have backed up your important stuff. HDDs are very fragile and once anything goes wrong, there's a 99% chance that disk is about to fail permanently without further warning. Any warning you get is a gift.